


My Cup Runneth Over

by meaninglessblah



Series: Gift Fics [3]
Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, DCU, DCU (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magic, Alternate Universe - Sentinels & Guides, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Blood, Damian Al Ghul - Freeform, Knifeplay, League!Damian, League!Jason, M/M, Magic-Users, Marking, Soul Bond, The League of Assassins (DCU)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-27
Updated: 2020-03-27
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:13:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,776
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23327551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meaninglessblah/pseuds/meaninglessblah
Summary: Damian is a mage of virtue, of exceptional merit. Someone to fear and behold. No longer a paltry shadow for his father’s use.Hecommanded now. And he had found a vessel who was more than willing to serve - to share his font, his soul, his entire being - with Damian. Jason was content to play the sword in Damian’s hand, to fulfill the role of vessel for Damian’s power. To be his cup, as he had been Damian’s father’s before him.
Relationships: Jason Todd/Damian Wayne
Series: Gift Fics [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1960108
Comments: 10
Kudos: 135





	My Cup Runneth Over

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ride_the_dinos](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ride_the_dinos/gifts).



> This is a birthday present for ride-the-dinos, who requested a fic to accompany [this art](https://heuksae.tumblr.com/post/189817190013) by heuksae. So I wrote a thinly veiled dom/sub DamiJay fic with soulmate magery.  
> Happy birthday, doll! Hope you like it <3

Damian has never placed much stock in soulmates. He understands the concept, understands the social balance it achieves and the existential purpose it serves. Knows the push and pull of vessel and mage, the wash of tides between them, the equilibrium achieved. 

The concept has just never really asserted itself in his life in any way that convinced him that it was anything more than a transaction of mutual benefit. A relationship of professional courtesy. 

He’s played both mage and vessel in his short life; his mother had insisted on training the versatility into him from a young age, the ability to both serve and command. It had done him well in his service to his father; the man’s magery was a thing to behold, and at such a young age, Damian had felt nothing but privileged to be the Batman’s vessel, the earthly font for his expansive power. Feeling that euphoric rush, it wasn’t difficult to understand why the mantle of Robin has been such a fiercely protected one. 

Now that Damian is a mage in his own right, he gets to experience that power himself. There’s nothing that compares to being on the other end of that rush of energy, waxing where he had previously waned, the breach of another’s life force opening willingly for his own use. The ability to draw deeper than his own soul, dredge past the salty bed of his own lake and into an _ocean_ of power. 

Jason is a font unlike any other. 

His emotional stores run far deeper than Damian has ever seen, his power unbridled after years moulded beneath his mother’s hands. Unfettering him from their father’s training, from the impassive restraints the man trained into all of his vessels, had taken time and patience. But the man had proved himself capable, and above all else, dedicated to shirking the tedious rules the Batman insisted upon. 

It had served a purpose, in its time. Keeping the Robins’ boundless stores of emotion and energy in check, caged until their mage had need to call on them. A master pouring out his cup. 

Damian had served. Damian had _drowned_ beneath his father’s hand. 

He knew the man’s fear, had tasted it reverberating back through the bond they had shared. The concern that Damian wouldn’t be satisfied with playing another’s vessel for long. The dread that he would seek out greener pastures and darker alleys; immoral paths to build his power. 

He had been right, as he usually was. If nothing else, Damian could respect his father’s discerning intellect. 

Now, on the other side of adolescence, Damian was a mage of virtue, of exceptional merit. Someone to fear and behold. No longer a paltry shadow for his father’s use. 

_He_ commanded now. And he had found a vessel who was more than willing to serve - to share his font, his soul, his entire being - with Damian. Jason was content to play the sword in Damian’s hand, to fulfill the role of vessel for Damian’s power. To be his cup, as he had been Damian’s father’s before him, before the incident. 

Jason had proved himself time and time again to be devout. Loyal to a fault, though Damian did not share his mother’s disparaging sentiments that Jason played _too good_ a soldier. He knew the man, knew his intentions. Had _felt_ them as if they were his own, rippling heady and intoxicating through their bond. 

Had felt their hollow absence when he had ceased to call on his vessel’s energy. 

Damian despised that emptiness more than he let on. Their bond was temporary, stretching between them each time Damian used Jason, each time Jason offered himself. But the ache of something that could be grows deeper every time he calls on his unbound vessel. 

Damian wants more than temporary power. He wants more than the piecemeal parts of Jason. He knows the man’s desires pool deeper than just service, knows Jason wants to be bound to Damian in the same way he had been to their father. 

Damian knows he can be a better mage to Jason than his father ever was. Knows he wouldn’t let his own vessel wander astray, wouldn’t let him be scoured and abused at the hands of another mage. Knows Jason should never have had to suffer at the hands of a maniac, never had his bond corrupted as it was. Damian is not his father, and he will do everything in both their powers to ensure Jason never falls to the same fate again. 

When Jason wears his soulmark, is kissed with the promise of his dedication, Damian will uphold the vow with every shred of his being. As much Jason’s as Jason will be his. Permanently and inseparably. Vessel and mage, eternally bound. 

Jason deserves someone who can protect him. Someone to show him his true potential. Someone to appreciate his unwavering commitment. Someone to return it in kind. 

Damian will never understand how his father could have let Jason go. How he could have replaced him with another vessel; an easier, prettier cup on his table. Drake was a powerful vessel in his own right, with admittedly a far better grasp on control than Jason had at his age. Damian had studied Drake’s potential, the way he bent to his father’s whim, became the tool he needed. 

But Damian would take the power, take the challenge, any day of the week. Wouldn’t seek a replacement when he had a vessel such as Jason to call his. Bearing his soulmark. _Bound_ to him. 

Some people were irreplaceable. 

When Jason stands before him, at the base of Damian’s throne, with every morsel of dedication, every ounce of perseverance, shining through his perfect form, Damian can’t help but preen. He admires the posture of the vessel, dotes on every curve of muscle, every scoured scar; every piece speaks to Jason’s conviction, his commitment to life, and now to Damian. 

It’s a heady thing, loyalty. It has a way of saturating every pore. Damian’s entire being thrums with the force of it, and he’s certain, from the burning intensity of Jason’s stare where it meets his, that the other feels it just as strongly. 

They were born to be one another’s soulmates. As much Damian’s birthright as this throne draped in emerald and gold is his. Jason may be cloaked in the bloody red of his past, the impenetrable shadows of their father’s betrayal, but he stands just as resolutely beneath Damian’s gaze. Damian _will_ claim him, will possess him just as completely. Will shoulder the mantle of being Jason’s mage just as purposefully as he will someday shoulder his title as the Demon’s Head. 

When he breaks the silence of the court, it’s with every pair of eyes on him. Expectation reflecting in every blink. Damian’s no stranger to expectations; neither is Jason. 

“Do you want to pledge yourself, pet?” Damian asks evenly, tone soft beneath his firm edge. 

Jason inclines his head the barest inch, gaze flickering down to the tile at Damian’s feet. The younger spreads his knees open, beckoning him forward. 

The larger man climbs the steps of the dais with steady surety, but Damian can see the twitch of his fingers, the barest pinch of his brow. He knows his guard too well to be fooled into believing he is wholly unaffected by the proposition. 

It’s not that Jason is reluctant; Damian has absolutely no qualms that Jason would lay himself down to spare Damian’s life without a second’s hesitation. But to act as the vessel for his magery is a commitment not taken lightly. Jason has served as another’s vessel before, and it had ultimately brought him nothing but misery. 

It must be hard to lay his life force in the hands of a man who bears the same features as the one who had betrayed him. Left him to the psychopathic whims of a dark sorcerer. 

Damian squares his shoulders, holds the man’s gaze firmly. He _will not_ be his father. 

Jason pivots at the height of the dais, immediately before where Damian’s throne rests, and slides down to his knees between Damian’s ankles. He hears the man exhale roughly, watches his shoulders heave. 

Damian reaches forward with one hand, sweeping back the man’s short fringe over his crown, imparting reassurance as his other falls to his belt. He knows Jason’s eyes have slipped down when he trails fingers over the bristles of his hairline at the top of his neck, because his head dips forward. 

So Damian’s hand travels back up, wrapping into the strands on his crown and gently guiding Jason’s head down, and then further. Eases him forward until Jason’s shoulders buckle to follow, palms sliding out to brace his weight as he exposes the broad expanse of his mottled back. Damian swipes a thumb over a cluster of scars in the valley of his spine, gathering himself when Jason shudders at the contact. 

Then he flicks his dagger free of its sheath in a sharp, unbroken movement. 

Jason’s shoulders pinch at the sound, but they flatten almost immediately, rolling forward to smooth out the contours of his muscle. Giving Damian the best canvas to work upon. 

Damian’s trailing hand slides down between the man’s shoulder blades, pausing at the top of his spine to trace idly over the mark there. The swathes and curls of another’s mark, woven into Jason’s skin like Fate had branded him themself. 

He longs to sink his nails into its pores, scratch it off Jason’s soul, instil his own in its place. The mark Jason _deserves,_ the one he craves. The mark of one who will protect him, who will give him purpose. 

Jason tightens when his nails dig into that muscle, so Damian exhales a steadying breath through his nose and softens his grip, wrapping his long fingers over Jason’s shoulder in a stabilising hold. 

“Do not move, _amin,_ ” he instructs softly, and watches Jason’s hands clench to fists on the marble. “I will be swift.” 

Then he takes the lip of the blade and runs it clean across the width of the mark, before arching back in a slice that splits the skin. Jason makes a high, broken grunt in the top of his throat, biting the sound off before it can press past his lips. 

Damian rolls the blunt of his unoccupied thumb up the stiff line of Jason’s exposed neck, soothing into his hairline as he continues. It’s short work; he stays true to his word. By the end of it, Jason’s back is a flare of agitated pink skin, a steady drip of red cleaving down the length of his spine. 

He’s trembling, Damian realises when he withdraws to clean his blade on the material of his pants where they stretch tight over his thigh. Little minute shivers as his muscles flex and shake. Doing his utmost to stay still beneath Damian’s comforting touch, to stay true to his obedience. 

Damian shifts the grip in his hair to wrap tightly around the back of his neck, squeezing unforgivingly beneath the bones of his skull. Jason winds and unwinds beneath it, a soft mewl of pain sliding off his lips as he straightens. Pulls the cuts on his back taut, makes them bleed afresh. 

He holds the position in unwavering surety as Damian returns the clean knife to his own mouth, pressing the point of it deep into the vermilion of his lower lip. It flares with a sharp stinging pain, the flesh resisting the endurance of the knife before it secedes. Blood wells, oozing over into his mouth and down his chin as Damian broadens his sit. 

He rolls his lips together, coating them in the crimson spill as he takes a hold of Jason’s shoulder. Doesn’t miss the tremble when the cold metal of the bloodied knife touches the man’s heated skin. Holds him still and steady as Damian bows his head towards that expanse of open flesh. 

His lips sting when he brushes them over the nape of Jason’s neck, just above where his mark now sits, and Damian exhales gently through the pain, brow pinching at the tug behind his navel. 

It feels like fire, intangible and liquid at once, licking through his extremities and then his limbs and then _igniting_ the core of him. Spiralling up through his throat and past his lips to bury itself in Jason’s mark. Damian seizes with the rampaging force of it, hand clamping down hard enough on Jason’s neck to have the man bleat in surprise. 

He can barely hear Jason past the roar in his ears, a tumultuous ocean of sound throwing itself against the rocks of his eardrums and Damian chokes and leans into the scour of it, lets himself bleed raw. The pain in his lip flares to a point of inscrutable heat, blinding in its intensity. He can feel a streak of cold cleaving down his cheek, but he can’t blink, can’t _think_ past the consuming greed of his magic. 

It doesn’t snap so much as burst, the dredges rushing from his parted lips to leave Damian hollow, empty. His muscles surrender to blissful respite, his forehead slumping down to burrow into the nape of Jason’s neck before Damian can catch himself. His vision swims dangerously, his body aching with the movement as he fumbles to catch his own weight. 

It takes a few minutes of long, slow, arduous breathing, during which the universe folds and unfolds and Damian bleeds through the consciousness like a man sinking, before he realises he’s shaking too. There’s a pressure around his calf, and when Damian focuses on it, he can tell it’s Jason’s hand, comforting him, steadying him. 

He swallows back the words of gratitude, replaces them with a brush of thanks against his hairline, where none of his court can see, and uses the slack grip he has on Jason’s neck to right himself. 

Every muscle sings with protest, his energy sapped with the exodus of his magic. Jason seems exceptionally more steady beneath him, an anchor in Damian’s wavering storm, and he lowers his grip to trace the sealed mark with his thumb, smearing old blood beneath his approving gaze. 

“Prince?” Jason prompts after a moment, petal soft and velvet. It hums though Damian’s consciousness like it was his own thought, and he surrenders into the familiarity of that tone. He understands now, how mages can claim to hear their vessels across the churn of a filled room. How their voice can stand clear as glass against the smear of others. How it can feel as though the world could collapse and his only thought would be of the vessel at his feet. 

So Damian pulls his bloodied hand back, upturning his palm as the spell blooms on his wet lips. A burst of flame, sharp and white-green in its intensity, flares into his hand, and Damian smiles, extinguishing it just as quickly. 

“Stand, pet,” he instructs, and Jason shows none of his previous hesitation when he rises, shoulders set and spine straight. Awaiting instruction, awaiting Damian’s command. He stands with his vessel, stepping down the dais when Jason shifts aside to let him past and follows immediately after. Echoes every step like they were one body, one mind. Connected, now and always, by the strength of their seal and the fortitude of their bond. 

It’s only as he strides through the doors at the end of the hall, under the approving, watchful gaze of his mother, that Damian realises he can feel Jason’s presence behind him too. Everpresent, like a shadow, brushing ever so slightly against his elbow. Paced so precisely behind his left shoulder so as to never hinder him and yet be closer than Damian’s own skin. 

Damian flattens his shoulders and lifts his chin, lengthens his stride with all the regality his title affords him. He’s aware of Jason turning to survey Damian’s mother; questions and discards just as briefly what they share in that gaze. 

Jason’s loyalty is to him and him alone. There is not a curse in the world that could convince Damian to the contrary. They are each other’s halves now, master and servant, mage and vessel, eternal. Two mouths, four hands, and an arsenal between them. 

He feels Jason smile beneath the confines of his mask; private, where only Damian can know. The sentiment echoed on the older man’s lips where his own cannot form the triumph themselves. A vessel for his victories as much as his magery. 

They’re going to achieve so much, Damian knows. 

He can’t wait to show them all. 

**Author's Note:**

> [ ](https://linktr.ee/meaninglessblah)


End file.
